Improbable Research

Robert Krulwich wrote an essay about the beetles/bottles discovery that resulted in the 2011 Ig Nobel biology prize. That prize was awarded to Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle. [Gwynne and Rentz published accounts of that discovery, in two papers: "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera)," D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, vol. 22, , no. 1, 1983, pp. 79-80 — and "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984, pp. 116-7.

Krulwich's essay, under the headline "The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name, Of A Beetle For A Beer Bottle", includes this passage:

Looking even closer, they recognized it as an Australian jewel beetle, and looking closer, they noticed it had (as they wrote later) its "genitalia everted — attempting to insert the aedeagus," which is a very polite way to say they were looking at a beetle attempting to mate with a glass container. Clearly, this was a very confused individual. But then they found three more stubby beer bottles, and on two of them, surprisingly, were more male beetles, also "mounting" their bottles. That makes three frustrated males. Hmmm. That got them interested. So...

This BBC Plane Wild documentary looks, videographically, at the phenomenon:

the eminent scientist/blogger SciCurious attended the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, where she interviewed the scientists who made the discovery. Read about it in her essay  called “IgNobel Prize WINNER: The beetle and the beer bottle, a tragic love story“.

The Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine boasts a largest editorial board, perhaps the world’s largest. The journal sent a note to investigator Kurt Verkest, who forwarded it to us. The note reads:

Dear Dr. K R Verkest,

Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine (JMGM), an Open Access peer-reviewed International journal promotes ongoing research and information exchange. Papers may be submitted from any discipline related to Molecular and Genetic Medicine and suggested content areas include but are not limited to Cancer biology and therapy…

Why with Us?

✓ Publishes the most important research in the field and distributes it to wide range of readers

✓ Quality Peer-review: More than 20,000 eminent scientists in the editorial board handling the review process…

BONUS: The journal’s web site lists only about 20 of those 20,000.

BONUS: The journal lists three (3) editors-in-chief. The list of editors-in-chief here is reproduced from the journal’s web site.

We recently drew attention to the 1998 discovery at Cornell regarding the possibility of tweaking one’s cicadian rhythms by shining a bright light at the back of one’s knees. But continuing research into extraocular (outside the eye) light stimuli has turned to the possibility of a more direct route. Why not shine a light directly into one’s brain? Fortunately, there’s no need to resort to trepanning, because (at least) two convenient pathways already exist for brain illumination. Namely the ear canals. A research team from the University of Oulu, Finland (“Creating Innovation for the Future”) tested volunteers while they underwent blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning (fMRI) as a bright light was delivered via their external ear canal :

“Light was produced by two 3 W LEDs (main light spectrum peak at blue light 465 nm and a secondary peak at 550 nm) and delivered via 5 meters long polycarbonate colourless fiber optic light guides connected to ear-plugs in the subject’s ears while inside the scanner.”

Findings from the study :

“…suggest that the brain possesses photosensitive properties, which will have interesting implications for the modulation of brain function and understanding the basic physiology of the brain.”

But, the authors add :

“The mechanism for the phototransduction of the brain tissue remains to be discovered and we are currently investigating it in more depth.”

see: ‘Stimulating brain tissue with bright light alters functional connectivity in brain at the resting state’

NOTES:

[1] “ Some of the authors have conflicts of interests with a company, Valkee Ltd., that develops and sells devices for bright light stimulation via ear-canal. Authors’ connections with Valkee Ltd. are: Nissilä and Aunio are company founders. Nissilä, Aunio, Takala and Timonen are share-holders (varying from major to minor). Nissilä, Aunio and live-in partner of Starck are employed by Valkee Ltd. Valkee Ltd. did not have a role in the decision to submit the paper for publication.”

[2] The company, Valkee, has recently received a US patent for their invention ‘Portable Ear Light Device’ and also have a European patent pending for a Device and method for altering dopamine level from which the illustration above is taken.

[3] Many thanks to John Hoyland’s Feedback column in New Scientist, 10 May 2013 ‘Light up your Brain’ for drawing attention to the Valkee ear light.

BONUS : (unrelated, except via wordplay) ‘Me ears are alight’

Sedeer el-Showk [pictured here] does what might be called a literary experiment: describing human agriculture from the perspective of “attine ants, a group of ants which have evolved a mutualistic relationship with certain fungi that can only be described as a form of agriculture”:

In addition to the difficulties of communication, other biological limitations of humans may serve to explain some of the shortcomings of their agricultural practices. For example, while we can provide important liquid supplements to our fungi, individual humans appear unable to directly produce the nutrients needed by their crops, which are instead provided by the activity of specialized castes working in structures dedicated to this task. Studies have demonstrated that the fragrant anal paste produce by humans is a suitable substrate for plant growth; surprisingly, however, humans do not take advantage of this resource. Some researchers have suggested that humans may be unable to properly ensure the hygiene of crops grown in this manner and would thus be exposed to an unacceptable risk of parasitism, although others contend that the anal paste has in fact been used by some colonies. Clearly, further research is needed to understand this aspect of human agriculture….

In the same blog post, he also describes ant agriculture from the perspective of humans.

Jessica Halpin has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). She says:

I’m a MS-wielding microbiologist at a large government agency. I troubleshoot and develop protocols for molecular subtyping of bacterial foodborne pathogens.

Jessica Halpin, MS, LFHCfS
Research Microbiologist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Georgia, USA